President’s Letter

I am sure everyone is delighted by the wonderful articles Jan Hadley and Alicia Arter have been sharing in the Queen Anne Magnolia News and on our website (www.qahistory.org) about the history of grocery stores in our neighborhood. Grateful though I am to Joe Veyera, editor of the News, I encourage our members to visit our website where photos can be clearer and (on occasion) in color. I hope you will consider Alicia and Jan’s careful research on these stories and their enthusiasm for them as great reasons to support the society and rejoin now.

Our January 26 meeting to be held at 7:00 pm at Aegis Living on Galer will focus on Jan and Alicia’s work. They will explore myriad details about eating on Queen Anne that have yet to find a place in their work. To borrow an expression my mother used in the strangest contexts, it will be a ‘delicious’ meeting. …Continue reading “Cobblestone — December 2016”→

President’s Letter

This letter steals from our upcoming application for sustained support from 4Culture. The coincidence of deadlines explains a bit of why this has happened; however, members will be pleased to know that since 2014 we have been awarded $6,000 in sustained support from 4culture. This important contribution has made a difference in how your society operates. We have the means of continuing programs, improving our website and creating new programs without risking our financial viability. It is an incredible gift.

Here are extracts from what we will submit in our new application to 4Culture. In writing about our ‘community,’ we wrote: Queen Anne is disproportionately populated by young (average age 34), unmarried adults who are more homogeneous (87% white) and better educated (over 60% college educated) than Seattle as a whole.: homogeneous (87% white) and better educated (over 60% college educated) than Seattle as a whole. Ten percent of residents are under 18, about half the proportion of children in the city. Seniors constitute about 9% of the population. The society’s five annual meetings attract older residents. Its three tours attract a cross section of the population. Youth attend its school tours. The society’s columns in the Queen Anne Magnolia News offers community history to 11,000 readers per month while other articles appear monthly in Queen Anne Living magazine. Articles about landmarks, Queen Anne persons and places of historic interest are popular. Our website redesigned in 2016 with support from 4Culture attracts approximately 2,500 hits per month (30,000/per year), three times the 2014 number, it constitutes our largest audience. These media extend our reach significantly. An effort to expand and diversify our board resulted in five new members joining in May. They included four women and one Latino. Our public meetings are very successful and supported by content producers who are professional historians or others with special expertise. In May 2016, David Williams spoke about the impact on Queen Anne of early 20th c. earth moving, while Dan Kerlee addressed a joint meeting with the Pacific Northwest Historians Guild on early 20th c. street celebrations.

I trust you agree with or answer about the programs we are most proud of: We are proud of the original articles in the Queen Anne Magnolia News. Two outstanding articles by society member Florence Helliesen on “Queen Anne Park” trace the history of the curving streets, fantastic views and generally modest-sized homes that tell an exciting story of the 1920’s as real estate development drew to a close before the Great Depression. This month, following two years of research, two board members began publishing a nine-part series on the history of food. The first article traces where in the 1920’s neighbors could buy groceries in over 50 shops in a two-mile stretch on Queen Anne Avenue. Our Landmarks Preservation Committee collaborates with Historic Seattle, MOHAI and property owners to protect landmark buildings. Members regularly testify at Landmarks Preservation Board meetings. We achieved a new high in 2016 with the designation of our first successful in-house nomination of the city’s former Power Control Center. The preservation work distinguishes Queen Anne among historical societies and furthers our mission to protect our community’s historic fabric. Also, an architect on our board created “Queen Anne Modern,” a tour where participants receive a packet describing buildings on the tour and architects meet the group to explain their designs. It has been repeated three times. A huge effort went into the redesign of the society’s website. Sporting a new modern look, the site allows volunteers to post articles, photographs and events themselves. The significant increase in views over the previous version speaks highly of our electronic effort and the ease of access to previously published print versions.Michael Herschensohn

Kim’s Musings

I spent a recent weekend splitting my personality between American Radio Theater’s annual Radio Studio (held at Pioneer Hall by Madison Park, and with 80+ members of my high school graduating class of 1961. The latter event was our 55th anniversary of graduation from Queen Anne High School. It brought back some warm memories of good teachers and classes which ‘rocked’ as far as both learning and entertainment can co-exist. We talked about the many changes on and around Queen Anne Hill – looking across from the south end of Magnolia Bluff at the Seattle Yacht Club’s marina headquarters. A number of classes have held their reunions here, and it was a welcome venue in both site and hour choice – 4-8 p.m. Most could drive home while it was still fairly light out.

One of our alums worked on the construction of the silos at the southwest end of Queen Anne; another was a long-time ‘rival’ (friendly) of Phil Spaulding’s naval engineering and design firm (Phil was also a Queen Anne grad). We talked about the Cherberg family – John, in particular, who went from QA alum to UW player, Cleveland and Queen Anne high schools’ football coach (bringing city titles to both schools; then from there to UW coach, and finally, Lieutenant Governor of our state. Queen Anne grads do make a difference.

We discussed the disappearance of many single-family houses from Queen Anne, and the current craze of hand-held devices which keep humans from interacting with the people and environment around them. We watched the cruise ships depart from what were formerly the U.S. Naval Pier 91, and looked at the incredible growth of Belltown and downtown (we all remember that while we were in school, only two buildings defined downtown: the Smith Tower at the south end, adjacent to Pioneer Square, and the Northern Life Tower (now Seattle Tower) at Third Avenue and University Street.

Some things go well, but we are defined as much by the changes around us, especially the ones we rally against, and watch the constant beauty of the skies overhead, the occasional glimpses of Mount Rainier, and the seemingly never-ending flow of the waters of Puget Sound. It was a great evening, culminated by singing the Alma Mater and saying farewells to our friends, hoping that this won’t be the last time we get together.